


Just Fine for Now

by glittercracker



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Adventure, Fluff, Gen, Introspection, downtime zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23405392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glittercracker/pseuds/glittercracker
Summary: Gon and Killua have been working hard. Too hard, their families think - and they come up with a solution just perfect for two overworked Hunters!
Relationships: Gon Freecs & Killua Zoldyck
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	Just Fine for Now

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "Downtime" HxH zine. Thanks to everyone who helped put that together, and to the friends who beta'd this for me - esp @fireolin and @losing_sanity_fast!

“Gon, stop bouncing or I’ll tie you to something!” Killua snapped, exasperated. 

Gon had been spring-loaded since opening the letter from the Hunter Association assigning them to a mission. Killua understood: it was the first time that the Association had taken notice of Gon in the year since he’d regained his nen. But since they’d boarded the ferry to the remote island, Gon hadn’t been able to keep still longer than five seconds. Neither of them had slept the previous night because of it, and Killua was at the end of his tether.

“Sorry, Killua,” Gon said sheepishly, not looking remotely sorry. “But a mission!”

“Yes, Gon,” Killua sighed wearily. “A mission you’ll never even start if you detonate from excitement.”

Gon managed to keep relatively still until the ferry docked, then he flew off the boat. Killua sighed and followed him onto the dock, where Gon was already holding the letter that the Association had told them would be waiting when they arrived, containing the rest of their instructions. He was clearly desperate to open it, but before he could, Killua stilled him with a hand.

“What?” Gon wailed.

“Something’s wrong.” Killua had felt it the moment he stepped off the boat: a dampening in the atmosphere around him, like the breathless feeling just before a storm broke. He reached for his ten—and couldn’t find it. Fighting down panic, he tried to thrust his aura outward, but it was locked within him as tightly as it had been before he’d ever learned about the concept.

Grabbing Gon’s hand and ignoring his protests, he turned and ran for the boat, but it was already retreating. Shit. Could they catch it if they swam? No, not nenless…

“Sir, if I may?” 

Killua whirled on the elderly man in the forest-green uniform who had given Gon the letter. “What have you done?” he demanded.

The man smiled blandly. “I believe you will find, sir, that the letter explains everything.”

Gon needed no more invitation than that. He tore it open. Killua leaned over his shoulder to read, anger mounting in him with every word in Alluka’s slanting hand. 

_Dear Brother,_

_I know that you are angry at me right now, but it’s for your own good, and Gon’s, and mine. Gon has been working too hard on school—even Mito says so._

“Mito said that?” Gon asked incredulously. 

Killua was just as surprised. In the six months that Gon had been traveling with them, Mito called every three days to make sure he wasn’t neglecting his studies.

_And you’ve been working too hard too, helping Gon and me with our nen, taking care of me. About that. I love you, Brother, and I’m more grateful to you than I could ever say. But I’m not a little girl anymore, I can take care of myself, and I think it’s time we had a break from each other._

Killua was fuming, his face burning. “She’s getting rid of me?”

“Just keep reading,” Gon said.

Taking a deep breath, Killua returned to the letter.

_There is no mission. Sorry, but we knew that you wouldn’t leave me for anything less. The island you’re now on is a Hunter-free nature reserve. The only way they’d agree to let you go was if you couldn’t access your nen, so Mito asked Nanika to put a hold on that for the entire time you’re on the island. No school, no training, and no, you can’t call us because there’s no phone or net service there. The boat will be back in a week. Have fun!_

_Love, Alluka_

Killua crumpled the letter in his fist. “When we get back, I’m going to throttle her!” Then he saw Gon’s face, and his anger melted.

“They didn’t really want me for a mission?” Gon asked in a small, tremulous voice.

“Don’t feel bad,” Killua said. “You only just got really good with your nen again.” Gon didn’t look particularly comforted by this. All of the light was gone from his eyes and his bottom lip trembled. Killua’s heart twisted at the sight. He nudged him gently. “Look, we’re stuck here, so let’s see what this place is all about?”

Gon nodded, sighing. “I guess we don’t have a choice.”

The uniformed man smiled, a glint in his brown eyes. “We’re glad to have you as our guests. I’m Kenzo. Here’s a map of the island, your cabin is the one circled in blue.” He handed Killua a folded piece of paper. “It’s stocked with food and everything else you should need, but if you have any troubles, just come to the office.” He gestured to the rustic wooden building behind him. “Only rule is, don’t bother the animals. Well, except for the Cerulean Tigerfish. They’re an invasive species. Have fun!”

Killua mustered a smile, and Kenzo retreated to his office.

  
*

  
Killua hadn’t paid much attention to the island as they were approaching, beyond noting that it was lushly forested. Now they tramped a narrow path through a temperate rainforest, Gon brightening as he looked up at the giant tree ferns and palms splayed overhead. Vines with broad, sweet-smelling red flowers scented the air. Bright birds chased insects, and striped butterflies swooped in lazy circles. 

At last the path widened, opening into a clearing by a rocky shore. A little blue cabin perched on top of the rocks, its face to the sea, thick foliage at its flank. “Guess this is it,” Killua said. 

The cabin was small, with a tiny kitchen and bunk beds, a table and a couch by a wood stove. Every whitewashed wall had large windows that looked out on rocks and crashing waves. Gon put his pack down; his face had begun to brighten.

“You know Killua...this place isn’t so bad,” he said, peering into the refrigerator. He pulled out a punnet of berries and munched on them as he opened the back door.

“Yeah, maybe not,” Killua said, his eye falling on several boxes of chocorobos on the counter. He picked one up and followed Gon outside. Gon had ditched his shoes and climbed down to the water’s edge, a maze of sea-smoothed boulders and rock pools. He was standing knee-deep in one of them, poking at a brilliant crimson seven-armed sea star.

“Didn’t they say not to bother the animals?” Killua asked, wading into the pool beside him.

Gon looked up sheepishly. “I just wanted to see if it would change color. They should if you startle them.”

“Maybe they’re too used to being poked by tourists? Or—” Killua launched a chocorobo at the starfish, grinning when it flushed with purple. Gon laughed delightedly. “But no more of that!” Killua said. “I don’t want to get in trouble when we’re stuck here from a week.”

There was speculation in Gon’s gold-brown eyes. “Let’s stop thinking of it like that. Being stuck.”

“How?” Killua asked, popping another chocorobo into his mouth and tossing one at Gon, who caught it in his own.

Gon swallowed, then grinned. “Let’s play!”

  
*

  
Dares in their eyes, they stood in their underwear on the edge of a cliff formed of striated rock hanging over the sea. Swimwear would have been nice, Killua thought, trying not to look at Gon’s threadbare underclothes (at least he was wearing some). Then again, he doubted he’d be thinking much about what either of them were wearing once they hit the dark, frothing water below.

“So,” Killua said, “first one to that rock wins.” He pointed to the hump of black rock a good mile off, waves crashing against it. Gon nodded, eyes intent. “Ready… set… go!”

They dove. Killua came up gasping with cold and then set out with swift strokes, Gon right beside him. If he’d had his Godspeed Gon wouldn’t have stood a chance. But he didn’t, and Gon had learned to swim before he could walk, and damn this water was cold, and full of currents trying to drag him from his path.

By the time he reached the rock he was too frozen to remember that they’d been racing. He wasn’t, however, cold enough not to consider revenge when he pulled himself out of the sea to find Gon lounging on top of the rock asking, “What took you so long?”

  
*

  
“Okay, island boy,” Killua said as they stood outside the cabin the next morning, breathing in the cool green-scented air. “You might be better at swimming, but I’m better at running.”

Gon quirked an eyebrow. “Not without your nen.”

“Wanna bet?”

“What are we betting?”

“Loser cooks dinner.”

Gon cocked his head, hair still floppy with shower damp, and then grinned. “You’re on!”

Gon cooked dinner that night. 

  
*

  
And so the week went, bright and full of nothing much. “It’s almost time to go,” Gon said as they walked along a pebbly beach on the evening of their last day on the island, “and we’re even. How do we break the tie?”

Killua walked on, his silence broken only by the crunch of tiny stones under their feet. When they reached the end of the beach, Killua stopped and turned to Gon. 

“We don’t,” he said.

“Why not?” Gon asked.

“Because I’m tired of swimming and running and fishing for those disgusting blue slime fish and trying to get a picture of whatever the hell that was with feathers and claws that tried to kick me in the head.”

Gon laughed, bronze bells pealing into the falling night. “That was a Lesser Plumed Atranoch! It’s almost extinct!”

“Yeah, so was I,” Killua said dryly, sitting down on a flat rock, “and I hope I never meet a Greater one.” 

“You only die if they kick you right in the forehead,” Gon said, sitting down beside him. 

“How comforting.” But Killua couldn’t quite muster rancor with Gon’s shoulder warm against his, the soft lap of waves whispering on the shore. For a long time they just sat, watching the stars snipping holes in the deepening sky.

When it was fully dark, the stars flung bright across the velvety sky, Gon stood up. “I have a game,” he said.

Killua groaned. “No more contests!”

“Not that kind of game,” Gon said, turning to Killua, his eyes brilliant in the moonlight. “You can’t win or lose. Mito taught me when I was little.”

“Alright?” Killua said reluctantly. But when Gon offered his hand Killua took it, and let himself be pulled to his feet.

Gon led him to the farthest curve of the beach, where the water was almost still, and then he waded into it, looking intently downward. Killua followed him gingerly, wary of what that might come swimming out of the dark.

Apparently, Gon read his mind. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said, his voice warm with suppressed laughter. “No sea monsters. Not even any fish I don’t think.”

“Alright,” Killua repeated. “Then what are we doing here?”

“Catching sky,” Gon said.

“What?”

Gon glanced up, the planes of his face stark in the moonlight. Time seemed to tilt and slip, and for a moment Killua saw a shade of their older selves, standing together still but bound by something infinitely more complex. Then Gon smiled, and the premonition dispersed.

“You find a still piece of water,” he said, “and then you find the sky reflected in it. You scoop it in your hands.” He dipped his own hands—too broad still for his growing body—and came up with a little pool cupped in their hollow. “See?” he said, showing it to Killua. Reflected stars spun and fizzed in his best friend’s grasp. 

“I do,” Killua said. “Then what?”

Water and stars ran through dark fingers. “Then nothing. You let them go; you find others.”

“You don’t compare or something?”

Gon’s smile turned quizzical. “How can you compare pieces of sky? They can only be your favorite right then, because they’ll never be the same again.”

Will anything ever be the same again? Killua wondered and then shook his head, driving the thought away, not even certain what it meant, absolutely certain that he didn’t want to think it. Instead, he dipped his own slender hands into the water, brought up a dripping cupful of stars. 

Gon’s delighted laughter pealed out. “Look, you got the Eastern Compass on your first try!”

Killua grinned.

  
*

  
Later they sat close together on the flat rock, trying not to shiver. 

“I was mad at Alluka and Mito at first,” Gon said, his voice low, contemplative. “But I’m not anymore.”

“No?” Killua asked. Truth be told, he was still a little mad, and had a speech planned for Alluka when they got back to Whale Island.

“No. I mean, it wasn’t very nice, tricking us. But I think they were right.”

“About what?” 

“Us needing some time to just do nothing. And I think maybe…” Gon glanced at Killua, eyes and voice suddenly uncertain, even shy, and desperate for Killua not to ridicule whatever he was going to say next.

“Just say it, Gon,” Killua said, but his own voice was gentle.

“Maybe we should do nothing more often. I mean, adventures are nice and all, but so is this.” He gestured to the star-spattered night, the quiet sea.

“Yeah,” Killua said after a moment. “It is.”

Gon was silent again, but Killua could almost hear the gears of his friend’s mind turning. At last Gon said, “There’s something I’ve never stopped thinking about. From back then. You know.”

Killua knew. “Back then” could only ever mean one thing to them, and he didn’t want to bring that horror into this peaceful night. “Gon, we’ve talked about this. A lot. There isn’t anything else you need to say.”

“Maybe not. But there is something I need to do.”

“What is it?” Killua asked warily.

Gon turned to Killua, wrapped his arms around him and pulled him close, chin tucked against Killua’s shoulder. Killua’s heart stopped for a moment. Then he cried, “Gon, what the hell—”

But Gon only clutched him tighter. “I should have done this at the World Tree When we said goodbye,” he said. “You were my best friend, and you’d saved my life, and I let you leave without even hugging you. So I’m doing it now.”

Killua’s face was burning, his mouth full of protests—but when he opened it to speak them, he found himself choking on laughter. And then Gon was laughing too, and Killua gave up, and hugged him back. 

When their laughter died the silence was easy again. Somewhere out there in the darkness, Killua knew, the future hovered with all of its complexities. But that was the future, and this? Doing nothing with Gon and still somehow filling every moment with joy? 

Well, that was just fine for now. 


End file.
